Saturday, January 29, 2005
Photoshop Tutorials:
One of the nice things about computerdom is the willingness of many people to share their expertise and techniques. None are more appreciated than the ways to use Photoshop, an inherently powerful, but hard-to-learn-the-frills program. This site is chock full of tutorials on how to do various cool things with this powerful program. You have to register, but it's free.
One of the nice things about computerdom is the willingness of many people to share their expertise and techniques. None are more appreciated than the ways to use Photoshop, an inherently powerful, but hard-to-learn-the-frills program. This site is chock full of tutorials on how to do various cool things with this powerful program. You have to register, but it's free.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Further Review of Picasa 2
Picasa 2 will never be a Thumbsplus replacement (I'm not sure what might), but it does some things superlatively well (a list follows), and it does it in an utterly terrific way (by that I mean glitzy, animated, and pretty).
---It offers a wonderful slider for sizing your thumbnails---big, small, in between, and quickly variable---just the way it oughta be
---it has a photo rotation tool which even Thumbs could envy. When it rotates a picture, it also resizes it to accomodate the uncovered corners. No more having to manually re-crop, or Photoshop Cloning to fill in the dark corners!
---it offers true fade-in fade-out slide shows, the first I've ever seen that doesn't rely upon a program to turn your slides into a movie
---it has the best visual "see your annotations" (or not, your choice) on top of your photo, that I've ever seen
---it has a really cool way of assembling a slide show with variable timings (again, Thumbsplus is in trouble, by comparison)
---annotations are beautifully added, and show up when previewing pictures from the "preview" pane (or not, your choice). Thumbs requires selecting the picture and typing an ALT-ENTER combination to read the annotation. AND, you have to know that an annotation is present, otherwise you'd never think to look.
>>>>>>>>---you can rearrange the photos in the preview pane in the order you wish, and it sticks! No need to rename the photos to get an order you want; of course you can drag and drop to your heart's content
---you can create a self-running slide show and export it to a CD (haven't tested this one out yet).
for the neutral department
---it doesn't show the tree on the left in any conventional fashion. What it DOES do is organize the pane by date. If you want to think of it as a "tree" with nothing but photo directorie's shown, this is it. What's more, it allows you individual settings so that once having catalogued a directory, it will remain vigilant and show anything new/added to it, or it can be stagnant, never looking at it again; you can also scan your whole disk, but more importantly, just pick the folders you want to include in the database. Perhaps I'll get used to this unusual way of doing things, perhaps not.
Yet-to-be-determined department: if you alter a picture using Picasa's numerous picture manipulation or adjustment modes, it shows up in the index thumbnails, and in the bigger view as changed. I.e. the changes you have made appear to have been permanent. All of this without asking you whether you wish to over-write your file. Scary. But if you exit Picasa and view the same file using any other graphic file viewer, it is unchanged. Go back into Picasa, and it's changed. I have to find out how/why it does this. Where does it store the changes? And how would you access a changed file in any other graphics utility? More on this when I figure it out.
Picasa 2 will never be a Thumbsplus replacement (I'm not sure what might), but it does some things superlatively well (a list follows), and it does it in an utterly terrific way (by that I mean glitzy, animated, and pretty).
---It offers a wonderful slider for sizing your thumbnails---big, small, in between, and quickly variable---just the way it oughta be
---it has a photo rotation tool which even Thumbs could envy. When it rotates a picture, it also resizes it to accomodate the uncovered corners. No more having to manually re-crop, or Photoshop Cloning to fill in the dark corners!
---it offers true fade-in fade-out slide shows, the first I've ever seen that doesn't rely upon a program to turn your slides into a movie
---it has the best visual "see your annotations" (or not, your choice) on top of your photo, that I've ever seen
---it has a really cool way of assembling a slide show with variable timings (again, Thumbsplus is in trouble, by comparison)
---annotations are beautifully added, and show up when previewing pictures from the "preview" pane (or not, your choice). Thumbs requires selecting the picture and typing an ALT-ENTER combination to read the annotation. AND, you have to know that an annotation is present, otherwise you'd never think to look.
>>>>>>>>---you can rearrange the photos in the preview pane in the order you wish, and it sticks! No need to rename the photos to get an order you want; of course you can drag and drop to your heart's content
---you can create a self-running slide show and export it to a CD (haven't tested this one out yet).
for the neutral department
---it doesn't show the tree on the left in any conventional fashion. What it DOES do is organize the pane by date. If you want to think of it as a "tree" with nothing but photo directorie's shown, this is it. What's more, it allows you individual settings so that once having catalogued a directory, it will remain vigilant and show anything new/added to it, or it can be stagnant, never looking at it again; you can also scan your whole disk, but more importantly, just pick the folders you want to include in the database. Perhaps I'll get used to this unusual way of doing things, perhaps not.
Yet-to-be-determined department: if you alter a picture using Picasa's numerous picture manipulation or adjustment modes, it shows up in the index thumbnails, and in the bigger view as changed. I.e. the changes you have made appear to have been permanent. All of this without asking you whether you wish to over-write your file. Scary. But if you exit Picasa and view the same file using any other graphic file viewer, it is unchanged. Go back into Picasa, and it's changed. I have to find out how/why it does this. Where does it store the changes? And how would you access a changed file in any other graphics utility? More on this when I figure it out.
Friday, January 21, 2005
Picasa 2
I played around with Picasa in its earliest form, but was encouraged to try this latest one. It's a free photo-manipulation and photo tracking (cataloging) software closely associated with Google.
Preliminary opinion is that it does things in a very glitzy way (worth taking a look at for its cute animation), which must be memory intensive. It also does things in a rather non-intuitive way, not so good at least for me. But it does some things which none other of my various photo programs will do----some wow! photo collage effects. It's basic photo-enhancement effects appear to be well done, and it has a picture rotation feature which rivals that of Thumbsplus' "Rotate to Line," feature.
More about this as I learn its many features. In the meanwhile, it's FREE! Why not try it for yourselves? Click on the above link.
I played around with Picasa in its earliest form, but was encouraged to try this latest one. It's a free photo-manipulation and photo tracking (cataloging) software closely associated with Google.
Preliminary opinion is that it does things in a very glitzy way (worth taking a look at for its cute animation), which must be memory intensive. It also does things in a rather non-intuitive way, not so good at least for me. But it does some things which none other of my various photo programs will do----some wow! photo collage effects. It's basic photo-enhancement effects appear to be well done, and it has a picture rotation feature which rivals that of Thumbsplus' "Rotate to Line," feature.
More about this as I learn its many features. In the meanwhile, it's FREE! Why not try it for yourselves? Click on the above link.
Superstition Mountain Photography
Great site to visit see a local photographer's scenic work.
Great site to visit see a local photographer's scenic work.
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Saturday, January 15, 2005
Photo Club sites of interest:
Thumbsplus: great program for cataloging all photos, making galleries, printing pictures, and creating slideshows. Great for initial image manipulation. Free download and 30-day trial.
XnView: free program which duplicates much of what the above program does, but does not create galleries or databases.
Irfanview: all time great file viewer, for all types of picture files. Can create slide shows. Free.
DPReview: site for extensive and excellent reviews of all digital still cameras.
UseFilm: premium site for viewing world-class photography. Free use, but if you want the best images, you must register
Thumbsplus: great program for cataloging all photos, making galleries, printing pictures, and creating slideshows. Great for initial image manipulation. Free download and 30-day trial.
XnView: free program which duplicates much of what the above program does, but does not create galleries or databases.
Irfanview: all time great file viewer, for all types of picture files. Can create slide shows. Free.
DPReview: site for extensive and excellent reviews of all digital still cameras.
UseFilm: premium site for viewing world-class photography. Free use, but if you want the best images, you must register
